Ocasio-Cortez upset should be a wake up call—yet probably just a snooze fest for the establishment Democrats

By SJ Otto

The latest Democratic upset—Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez beating long-time mainstream Democrat Joseph Crowley of New York, should be a wake-up call to the mainstream Democratic Party leadership—"your strategy for winning elections is not working. Try something different!"

Actually the Democrat's strategy has been losing elections for years. And yet the leadership of the Democratic Party has not given up on it yet.

Ocasio-Cortez was a former organizer for Bernie Sanders’s presidential campaign. A number of politicians from the Bernie Sanders campaign last year, have formed a serious challenge to the DNC leadership of the Democrats. The DNC strategy is always the same. They raise as much money as they can, they stay as close to the middle of the political spectrum as they can and they avoid saying anything that will offend a voter. It simply hasn't worked. Democrats have lost many elections here in Kansas and they just won't give that strategy up. Ocasio-Cortez is a member of Democratic Socialists of America and she ran a campaign that made her left leaning politics in plain site. And she won.

According to The New York Times; Ocasio-Cortez:

"had declared it was time for generational, racial and ideological change."

Also:

"Ms. Ocasio-Cortez is a native of the Bronx and a Latina in a Queens and Bronx district that is majority-minority, a fact she emphasized repeatedly on the trail against Mr. Crowley, who is white. In hindsight, the seat represented perhaps a perfect brew for an upset: a rusty incumbent, a charismatic challenger and a liberal district that gave Mr. Sanders more than 41 percent of the vote against Hillary Clinton."

Not all the politicians who have taken support and backing of Sanders are committed socialists. But all of his supporters are challenging the mainstream corporatist wing of the Democratic Party. For example James Thompson is running a campaign to oust House of Representative Ron Estes, the Republican. He won't use the "S" word (Socialism. He said he thinks most people in Kansas don't like that word). He got nearly no support in his last campaign from the main-stream establishment Democratic Party here in Kansas. He is being challenged by Laura Lombard, who will probably get the support of the more traditional Democrats. But so far Thompson has raised his own money and has a committed staff of supporters that have put him out front for the Democratic Primary, August 7. He came close to unseating Estes, in the last election. Estes made little effort to meet the people in his 4th district. All he did was run some negative and misleading adds that the establishment Republicans paid for. He just figured he'd win because he was a Republican running in a mostly Republican district. He almost lost and there is a strong possibility he will lose out to Thompson this fall. Again from The New York Times:

“What I see is that the Democratic Party takes working class communities for granted, they take people of color for granted and they just assume that we’re going to turn out no matter how bland or half-stepping these proposals are,” Ms. Ocasio-Cortez said in a recent interview about why she was running."

Her remarks strike a cord with voters all across the country, especially young voters, who unlike previous generations, are turning out to vote in large numbers. The old stale establishment Democrats should be noticing that their lock on power is slipping away badly. Again:

"Ms. Ocasio-Cortez had used Mr. Crowley’s role in the leadership, and the fact that he was the head of the local Democratic Party machine, against him in her bid to upend the existing political class. She will face Anthony Pappas, the Republican candidate, in the November general election....

....Mr. Crowley is the first House Democrat in the nation to lose a primary in 2018. His loss is most significant for a congressional incumbent since Eric Cantor, then the No. 2 Republican in the House, was defeated in 2014 to a Tea Party activist, David Brat."

Last December I posted an article on the Democratic Party and their timid plans to do the same thing the party has done over the last 20 years and all of it was wrong. As Miles Kampf-Lassin, of In These Times wrote:

"There’s no shortage of ambitious programs waiting for the Democrats to embrace.

The story of the Democratic Party in 2017 has been one of timidity and stubborn resistance to real change.
In the immediate aftermath of the party’s preferred candidate facing a humiliating defeat in last year’s presidential election, questions swirled over what direction the party would take to respond to the new political reality. With Democrats at their weakest position in decades, having lost over 1,000 seats in states and Congress over the previous eight years, it appeared that a drastic shift in how the party operated was in store.
And the party was offered an early opportunity to embark on such a shift, with the campaign by Keith Ellison for Democratic National Committee chair. Ellison sported a resume as a bold progressive with popular support from rank-and-file Democrats and party activists alike. And he presented a clear break with the Democratic Party’s traditional establishment.
But rather than embrace the new direction presented by Ellison’s bid, party insiders conspired to instead elect Tom Perez, a candidate with much stronger connections to the party’s establishment wing. The result came as a dispiriting blow to many in the party’s base who hoped for a clear break in Democratic leadership."

It seems unlikely that the Democratic Party will learn anything from this humiliating defeat. They could change directions and start to embrace issues and seriously challenge President Donald Trump and the Republicans. I'm not holding my breath. The only hope for the Democratic Party are the new challengers, such Ocasio-Cortez, who represent a new bolder and liberal, left or democratic socialists who may have the nerve it takes to tell American public what these candidates really stand for. The mainstream Democrats are likely to just follow the same old lame, tired, bland strategy that has lost the Democrats election after election. With these new socialists running, there is a chance that the voters will finally have a real choice in these Fall elections.

 

Pix by Bill Clinton DNC Speech: Snooze fest or Sweet? #DNCinPHL.